Product Description

The PC224 is designed as a ’Burst Clock’ module, particularly for controlling sequences of transient digitiser operation, or any other application which needs a powerful and flexible clock.

The set of data consisting of clock frequency, number of pulses and trigger details forms a ’time domain; and up to 16 different domains may be programmed. Moreover each domain may be set to repeat itself up to 15 times before going on to the next domain.

The module may be configured to use any number of domains from 1 to 16 to make up a desired sequence, and this too may be set to recycle either up to 16 times or indefinitely (until signalled to stop).

The 15 clock frequencies available are in the 1,2, 5 pattern from 10Hz to 500kHz, based on the internal 1MHz clock, or pro rata for an external clock; zero frequency may also be selected, which means no output until the next trigger is received.

The number of clock pulses in any particular domain may be set from 1 to 24 bit binary or 16,777,215. Each domain has bits for WFT (Wait For Trigger), AOT (Advance On Trigger) and IO (Inhibit Output). WFT means when the domain is made active it produces no O/P until it receives a trigger, whereas with AOT the trigger advances operation to the next domain. If a domain has both bits set then the first trigger will set it to produce its output pulses and the second will stop it and select the next domain. If neither are set then the sequence will complete the programmed number of pulses (repeated the programmed number of times) for each domain in order, up to the last one programmed.

Setting the IO bit inhibits the actual clock output in a particular domain whilst allowing all other domain controls to operate normally, thus allowing a programmable dead time in the clock generation.

As can be seen, this module can handle an extremely wide range of timing requirements!